This Week in Willie Brown

The former mayor has been traveling for the past few weeks, which explains the conspicuous absence of his voice on Inside Scoop. Luckily for us Willie Watchers, he just couldn't wait to get back to San Francisco and now he's ready to review a couple of the more memorable meals from his jetset life. And when he's done eating, he'll bend our ear for a recap of a film about "one girl, four or five guys, an alien monster, a government cover-up and a whole slew of small-town characters." Surprisingly, it's only rated PG-13. Less surprising: that's not the only innuendo in his Willie's World column this week.

Although he popped in to NYC, LA, Baltimore and Atlanta, Willie only felt the need to advertise review the ultra-high end joints he dined at while in the Big Apple. One of his most memorable meals, he says, was at Pastis for Father's Day brunch. It was so memorable, in fact, that Da Gourmayor practically memorized the entire menu. It consists of: "eggs Florentine, eggs Norwegian and all kinds of other things that you do with eggs." Unforgettable!

And if eggs or other kinds of eggs don't do it for you, they also serve sticky toffee cake. "They love pushing it," Willie tells us, "and they did so with great delight." And he ought to know a pusherman when he sees one (because of how he delights in pushing meatbull subs).

Willie's other New York meal was at Milos, which is some kind of overpriced fish counter. Diners at Milos are allowed to pick exactly which fish they'd like to devour and how they would like the chef to prepare it. Service like that doesn't come cheap (although it probably should?) — the salmon at Milos runs at $45 per pound and Willie made a special note of the $25 tomato salads: "Tomato Salad $25!" Also: did you know you can get all the free, fresh tomatos you want when you eat fresh at one of Subway's many franchise locations? That's probably what was going through his head when he saw a $25 tomato salad.

Back in San Francisco, Willie popped in to a couple local joints he hadn't visited in awhile: Slanted Door and the Four Seasons. At the former, Willie was disappointed to find out that of the 120 or so people in the dining room, only three tables contained San Franciscans. We assume Willie did the proper due diligence on this one and asked for proper identification from all 120 of them. It would be really embarrassing if he were to mistakenly stereotype a whole bunch of people who just wanted to eat some upscale Vietnamese food without being judged by the guy in the hat standing at the door. Of the food, Willie says it was "very good."

The Four Seasons, on the other hand, is a hotel bar, so in Willie's mind that means there will never be any icky tourists there trying to rub elbows with him. The only people he ever sees at the Four Seasons are "the good bartenders and waiters from other top places" who come in for grilled ham and cheeses after work. He knows this is true because the bartender at the St. Regis told him so.

And speaking of local diners, Willie discovered Cole Valley's block party-like neighborhood dining scene last week as well. It's apparently "a place where the neighborhood restaurants actually serve their neighbors." It's kind of like when Willie descends from his St. Regis penthouse to eat in the St. Regis lobby bar. Same difference.

Regarding that porny-sound movie review, Willie was actually describing Super 8. He doesn't really offer anything more than that porno-riffic synopsis, but he does recommend you go see it in Imax. Because it's better when it's huge and in your face.

In transit news, Willie is not happy about the lack of traffic officers downtown. Why aren't there more of them clearing the way for his towncar? Are you paying attention Lap Dog Lee? This is very important, budget matters be damned.

Finally, as if we didn't make enough dick jokes today, Willie got a call to do a commercial speaking out against the proposed Circumcision Ban. The call came from Natalie Berg, a name Willie drops in there as if we're supposed to know who that is, but the hilarious conversation that follows is courtesy of local Bluegrass aficionado and journalism savior Warren Hellman. Hellman, knowing Willie's taste for the ladyfolk, entices him to do the ad because every woman in San Francisco is against the measure, apparently. When asked why he thinks that's true, Hellman says to his friend, "Willie, they all look for 20 percent off!" [Important to note here that Hellman keeps a drummer with an impeccable sense of comedic timing on retainer - so it was probably way funnier with the rimshot.]

We're also introducing a new piece to the column this week: The Willie Brown Backlash Index. We've developed a highly advanced, dare we say Google-like algorithm to calculate just how much people dislike Willie Brown during a given week. (Spoiler alert: we tallied up all the negative comments and then threw out all the positive ones. And for the record: we'll be counting positive feedback here as negative feedback for future Index ratings.)

Willie Brown Backlash Index:
Positive Feedback: 1 positive comment, 11 facebook likes, 10 Tweets
Negative Feedback: 8 negative comments
Anti-backlash, backlash: 8 thumbs-downs on the negative comments
Final score: 0 - Neutral. No one really likes to hear what he has to say, but plenty of people don't like the bitching from the anti-Willie contigent.